Bryan Johnson: Education, Entrepreneurship, and the Quest for Longevity

Bryan Johnson is an American entrepreneur and anti-aging practitioner who has gained recognition for his ventures in the tech industry and his ambitious pursuit of longevity. This article explores his educational background, entrepreneurial endeavors, and his current focus on reversing the aging process.

Early Life and Education

Bryan Johnson was born in Provo, Utah, and raised in neighboring Springville. He was a middle child with a brother and a sister. After his parents divorced, Johnson lived with his mother and his stepfather, who owned a trucking company. Before venturing into the world of business, Johnson spent two years in Ecuador as a Mormon missionary at the age of 19. Following this, he pursued higher education and graduated with a BA in International Studies from Brigham Young University in 2003.

Entrepreneurial Ventures

Johnson launched three startups between 1999 and 2003. The first sold cell phones and helped pay his way through Brigham Young University. He also started two other businesses. Inquist, a VoIP company Johnson co-founded with three other partners, combined features of Vonage and Skype. It ended operations in 2001. After that, he joined his brother and another partner on a $70 million real estate project in 2001.

Braintree and Venmo

Bryan Johnson is widely known as the founder, chairman, and CEO of Braintree, a company specializing in mobile and web payment systems for e-commerce companies. Discovering Braintree was an accident. Johnson was broke, up to his eyeballs in debt, and he had no way to make money because nobody would hire him, and so he was out in the street trying to sell credit card processing door to door, and he discovered that it was a broken industry and that there was this great opportunity to build a company. Braintree experienced significant growth under Johnson's leadership, earning a place on Inc. magazine’s list of the 500 fastest-growing companies for two years running. The company ranked 47th in 2011 and 415th in 2012.

In 2012, Braintree acquired Venmo, a mobile payment app, for $26.2 million. In 2013, eBay acquired Braintree for $800 million, marking a significant milestone in Johnson's entrepreneurial career.

Kernel

Johnson founded Kernel in 2016, investing $100 million of his own money to launch the company. Kernel launched in 2016. In just a year, it had already grown to a team of 30. The company later shifted its focus to building hardware that measures electrical and hemodynamic signals produced by the brain. In 2020, Kernel demonstrated a pair of helmet-like devices that can see and record brain activity. Kernel Flow is a $50m 'Fitbit' for your brain.

OS Fund

Ever focused on the future of humanity, Johnson launched OS Fund in support of “the world’s most audacious” scientists and entrepreneurs who are working to rewrite the operating systems of life. The OS Fund is a venture capital fund that invests in early-stage science and technology companies. When I invest in entrepreneurs for the OS fund, I want to find people who are one, future-literate, two, who are working on one of humanity's most audacious challenges or opportunities, and three, if successful, they would improve the lives of billions of people for generations to come.

Focus on Longevity and "Project Blueprint"

In recent years, Bryan Johnson has gained attention for his intense focus on reversing his biological age. He is willing to pay what it takes to be 18 again. Johnson is taking his quest to live as long as humanely possible a step further.

Johnson's personal project, known as "Project Blueprint," involves a strict regimen of diet, exercise, and monitoring of various health metrics. His ultimate goal? Don't die. He has claimed to have reversed his epigenetic age by 5.1 years.

His attempts have been met with criticism from some experts in fields related to aging. Moshe Szyf, a professor of pharmacology and therapeutics at McGill University, has expressed skepticism that science is yet capable of achieving the remarkable results that Johnson claims to be reaching.

Published Works

Not one to slow down, Johnson published two children’s books between 2017 and 2019. He wanted to know how he could help children understand that they have the power to offer their own lives, and that's this huge statement, right? And it's like, well, we have to start somewhere, and that became this book. He combines business acumen with an insatiable imagination to fuel his endeavors, which also include writing children’s books.

Code 7: Cracking the Code for an Epic Life (2017)
The Proto Project: A Sci-Fi Adventure of the Mind (2019)
Don't Die. Blueprint (2023)
We the People. Zero. (2023)

Personal Life

Johnson has three children from a previous marriage. After that marriage ended he had a relationship with internet personality Taryn Southern. The two were engaged, but broke up while she had breast cancer, according to Southern.

Other Endeavors

Bryan Johnson, America's Healthcare Leader for CBRE's Leasing Line of business, leverages over 20 years of diverse healthcare real estate experience to drive growth, strategy and client success. Mr. Johnson has a diverse background in leadership roles within the real estate and healthcare sectors. He previously worked as the executive managing director and market leader for Colliers in North Carolina.

Another Bryan Johnson served as Chief Executive Officer of Intermountain Alta View Hospital in Sandy, Utah.

Bryan Johnson, the engineer, obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, in 2010 and 2013, respectively. Prior to joining the University of Washington in 2018, he was an engineer with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Read also: Explore Bryan University

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